How Hotel Operations Software Helps During the Busy Season

The holiday season is anything but slow in the hospitality industry. Countless hotels around the world spend months preparing and designing elaborate holiday displays to surprise and delight travelers. From giant gingerbread houses to Vegas-sized fountain and light displays, if there is any industry that knows how to put on a beautiful, elegant, or even outrageous holiday presentation, it is the hotel industry.   

While this year’s busy season may look different from others because of reduced holiday travel due to COVID-19, it is still a special time of year. And just like any other year, hoteliers will be expected to provide the highest levels of guest service, while going out of their way to ensure guests have a memorable stay. 

The stress of the holidays, along with cold weather, and the pending dread of delayed or cancelled flights, mean that when guests make it to their destination, they want nothing more than to check-in to their rooms and start their relaxing holiday. This year, in addition to meeting high guest expectations, hoteliers are finding that health and safety concerns are redefining the way they provide hospitality. Managing health and safety for guests and staff is another job in and of itself. 

Here are the top ways hotel operations software supports employees during a busy holiday season: 

Make it easy for your staff to provide VIP treatment 

Guest services software enables hoteliers to provide personalized experiences for every guest that comes through the doors of their hotel. Providing a VIP guest experience used to be time consuming for hotel employees. It was a laborious task that required an enormous amount of planning and double checking every single detail to make sure nothing fell through the cracks. Leverage hotel technology to free up staff time to focus on creating the special moments that guests will appreciate and remember. 

With guest services software, reservations for meals or activities can be made by front desk agents or the concierge with the click of a button. Branded itineraries and confirmations can be printed instantly. With so many special requests during the holiday season, it is important for staff to be able to manage them all quickly and with a high-level of accuracy. 

Package tracking is another essential component of guest services software that can help hotel staff provide exceptional experiences during the busy holiday season. With an influx of holiday packages being sent and received, the ability for hotel staff to track packages once they’ve been signed for at the hotel is essential. Hotel staff can gain full visibility and transparency into the status of guest packages with package tracking. Have they been signed for by the hotel? Have guests been notified? 

Allow guest services software to provide organizational relief to help hoteliers operate efficiently and meet guest demands.

Automate Guest Messages to Save Time 

Communication is key for a seamless guest experience. It’s important for guests to receive real time updates from their hotel so they feel well cared for before, during and after their stay at your hotel. 

Automating guest messages makes sure that guests receive updates when they need them, not when you have someone sitting behind a computer or mobile device managing conversations. Guest Messaging software enables hotels to pre-program messages to automatically send at specific times. Automatically sending messages with instructions for check-in, how to make special requests, a link to room service menus, or a post-stay request for an online review are all ways for hoteliers to connect with guests while also eliminating manual tasks from their checklists. 

Feature Alert: ALICE Guest Messaging gives hotel staff the option of scheduling up to two messages to be automatically sent at a later date and time. The scheduled messages stay pinned at the bottom of the screen until they get sent by ALICE. With so many things happening during the busy season, there is much less room for error with the ability to schedule messages. 

Manage Health and Safety Concerns, and The Impact of COVID-19 With the Help of Software

This holiday season, it is of the utmost importance that hotels are focused on keeping staff and guests healthy and safe. Hotel operations software is one piece of software that has made a huge impact not only in managing health and safety, but also helping hotels that have been affected by COVID and are operating with lean teams. 

Social distancing has been widely accepted as one of the most effective ways to combat the spread of COVID-19. Reducing the amount of staff to staff contact throughout departments is just as important as reducing the amount of staff to guest contact. ALICE’s mobile functionality allows teams to communicate progress, and adapt to mid-shift changes, while reducing the number of in-person interactions. 

Staff members no longer need to see each other in person to receive physical assets such as a list of rooms to be cleaned or inspection checklists. Mobile housekeeping software is critical for keeping staff and guests safe, and ensuring your hotel delivers a contactless guest experience. 

ALICE Housekeeping can also auto-assign rooms based on preset logic that allows room attendants to work in specific parts of the hotel, when possible. If staff are not spread out across multiple floors, wings and public areas, this can help decrease exposure. 

With the busy season already upon many hoteliers, it can be hard for departments to implement new policies and procedures surrounding COVID-19, but with ALICE, so many product features are already built-in to support lean teams and move toward contactless communication options, reducing the amount of face to face contact. 

Find a management solution that can help your hotel stay organized, support your health and safety standards, and contribute to an exceptional holiday experience or your guests. Interested in learning more about ALICE and how it can help your hotel through the busiest times of year? Schedule a demo today!